"I am really proud of this third season. I think it's our best."

He faces down his critics, and tells us more about the Steve Jobs movie.

Aaron Sorkin understands the power of words. Which may seem like a rather obvious statement to make about one of Hollywood's most famous writers. But it's worth stating because Sorkin's characters do a lot of talking. A lot of talking. Much of it heated and opinionated, too, on matters political and otherwise. And that can lead to some confusion as to where the dividing line between Sorkin's own ideologies and those of his characters exists. Which isn't to say that there's not at least a small piece of the 53-year-old in every one of the distinct individuals he has created for shows like Sports Night, The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and The Newsroom. He's just not every part of every one of them at all times, despite what some critics choose to believe.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Since making its premiere in the summer of 2012, The Newsroom has been a particularly attractive magnet for reproach. The HBO series stars Jeff Daniels as Will McAvoy, a perfectly coiffed (more on that later) but mad-as-hell-and-he's-not-going-to-take-it-anymore anchorman who decides to rail against the corporate machinery that controls the news that actually makes it to our television sets—ratings and political correctness be damned. Using real news as the backdrop for his fictional newsroom, the show has jumped a bit through themes and time to touch on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the 2012 presidential election, and, now, the Boston Marathon bombing to Casey Anthony, Bigfoot, and Anthony Weiner. And the response has been unexpectedly polarizing, with detractors lobbing charges that the show "feels musty and out of touch" and "chokes on its own sanctimony." But Sorkin has been around long enough to know that criticism comes with the territory. Plus, he's got a guy he can call to handle the naysayers.

ESQUIRE.COM: The first episode of TheNewsroom's final season just premiered this week. Has all of the season been shot and edited already?

AARON SORKIN: Oh, it's all done. We mixed and locked the series finale about three weeks ago.

ESQ: What are your feelings going into this final session?

"I am really proud of this third season. I think it's our best."

AS: I am really proud of this third season. I think it's our best. You know there was some question in my mind as to whether I would bring the show back for a third session and I am really glad that I did. I love ending on this note.

ESQ: Apart from the finale, did you approach the writing of this season in a different way knowing that it would be the last?

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

AS: I knew that there was something I had to write toward and there was a season-long story that I had in mind that started to come into focus and take shape. I just swung as hard as I could at the ball.

ESQ: The show has always told stories around major news events, and this season it's the Boston Marathon bombing. Are there certain factors that you are looking for when choosing which events to cover on TheNewsroom?

AS: That's really the last thing that happens. As a matter of fact, with this season, the Boston Marathon bombing is really the only major news event that happens. There isn't a killing-of-bin-Laden episode or anything like that, because we are not doing the news. We are using the news as a backdrop to tell other stories. I like the idea of starting with the Marathon bombing because I wanted to start with breaking news. We had ended last year with Leona's, Jane Fonda's character's, admonition to get the confidence of the audience back and I wanted to start with an attempt to do that. But what was good about the Boston Marathon if you will—and forgive me for speaking glibly about a tragedy—from a dramatic standpoint was the five-day structure of it. That it happened on a Monday and the two guys were caught or killed by Friday, that was a helpful structure to begin telling the stories that would take us through the whole season.

ESQ: What's also interesting is the role that social media played in the crime, which is such a big part of what you guys are doing.

AS: Yes. It was also a great example of some of the things that happened during the season. There is new media versus old media. There are whistleblowers—are they patriots or traitors? There's the government versus a journalist. And the Boston Marathon—again, forgive me—was a helpful event for to start with. But I'll tell you what it wasn't—and what the show has never been—was a "here's how you should have done it" exercise.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

ESQ: Which is part of what has made the show so polarizing. You've been writing for a long time. Does it still surprise you when you hear criticism of what you are doing?

"This isn't a ventriloquist act. I am not trying to tell you what I think by using these actors and these characters as a delivery system for what I think."

AS: Obviously you would love for the praise for the show to be unanimous, but that's never going to happen. And you know that going in. What I didn't expect at first—though it has been three years and I've gotten used to it by now—was that there would be a group of people, and I think it's a relatively small group of people, who are watching a different show than the one I am writing. Who are themselves journalists, or at least they want to be, and they are looking at the show and they believe that I am leveraging hindsight into heroism by looking backward and that I am telling the pros, "Here's how it should have been done," which doesn't cross my mind while I'm writing the show. So there's a sort of hysteria about that.

ESQ: So how do you respond to that sort of criticism? Is it something that's just part of the job and you move on?

AS: There's a group of people that I can hire relatively inexpensively—like $500—and they go out and they murder the people I don't like. I give them a list of names and later on I get a phone call that just says "It's been taken care of" and then you hear a click and that's that.

ESQ: Well then I am just going to kiss your ass for the rest of this interview, Mr. Sorkin.

AS: [Laughs]

ESQ: And don't try and trick me into giving you my home address or anything. I'm onto you!

AS: The answer is you don't pay attention to it. I want to make a distinction between the people I think that you and I are talking about right now: There are television critics, movie critics, and theater critics too who I like and who I follow and I get genuinely bummed when they don't like something that I've written because I usually agree with them. [Laughs] So I am not saying that you need to have a character flaw to not like this show. There are people who don't like it for legitimate reasons, and then there are people who don't like it for nutty reasons.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

ESQ: You know, I have a theory that, in addition to being a great actor and everything, Jeff Daniels was cast as Will McAvoy because he has perfect male-anchor hair. Am I right?

AS: [Laughs] It turns out that yes, he does. Jeff gets really funny notes from Brian Williams and they are always about hair. Brian will say, "Check out Nightly tonight. My hair is better than yours. Your hair was looking pretty good Sunday, but I liked it better the Sunday before."

ESQ: Well he is perfectly anchorman-ly in the same way that Martin Sheen is perfectly presidential.

AS: Yeah. Martin had presidential hair, too. To be honest in both cases I wouldn't have minded if they had been a little more rumpled. But I am very happy with what I got. And I like the haircuts.

ESQ: And if ever there were a perfect testatment to Jeff Daniels's versatility, it would be that just a few days after The Newsroom returned, Dumb and Dumber To opened.

AS: Yes. Because Jeff is doing press for both right now. I saw him like a week ago Saturday, when Jim Carrey was hosting SNL. Jeff did a cameo and couldn't have been less Will McAvoy. But he is that versatile.

ESQ: Looking at the television shows you've created, you've written a lot about the television industry. With Will we get the guy who is really tired of the politics and mechanics of it. Having been around the television industry yourself, is there a part of you in Will McAvoy?

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

AS: I'm glad you asked that. This isn't a ventriloquist act. I am not trying to tell you what I think by using these actors and these characters as a delivery system for what I think. I'm really only thinking about a good story well told. But in terms of their personalities, there will be a piece of me in all the characters. I am the first one who plays them. I am jumping around while I am writing and playing all of the parts. So yes, there is a piece of me in Will McAvoy. But there is also a piece of me in MacKenzie and Leona and everybody.

ESQ: There's a lot of talk about a comment you made recently that after The Newsroom you're done with television. Do you still feel that way?

"If I get an idea for a series that I really like, I'm sure I won't be able to resist coming back and doing it."

AS: I know what you're talking about and I didn't mean for that to be a big announcement. Listen, if I get an idea for a series that I really like, I'm sure I won't be able to resist coming back and doing it. I've had a great time doing series television. The shows themselves have had varying degrees of success, but I've always had a great time doing it. When you're writing a movie or a play and writing isn't going well, which is for me the normal condition—it's an exceptional day when suddenly I've got something and it's going well—you can call the studio or the producer or whoever is waiting for it and say, "I know I said I was going to have it in by the end of the summer. It will probably be more like Thanksgiving," and then they will deal with that. But with television, you have airdates. You have hard deadlines, so you have to write even when you are not writing well. And then you have to point a camera at it and you have to broadcast it to everybody and that is the one and only part of television that I don't like. But in that LA Times interview, I didn't mean for that to be a swan song.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

ESQ: When you have an idea for something, how do you know whether it's a movie or a TV series, or play?

AS: Well the first time around was Sports Night and I had never thought about doing television before. I watched as much television as anybody else, I really liked it as a viewer, but I didn't know anything about television and I had never thought about doing it. But I had an idea in my head after many hours a day of watching SportsCenter, which was keeping me company in my hotel room while I was writing TheAmerican President. I thought that might be a fun setting for a movie if I were to do a kind of Broadcast News romance on a set behind the scenes at an ESPN-type place. But all the stories that were coming to mind were short stories; they didn't have a long arc. I mentioned that to my agent and he said, "It sounds like you are describing a television show," and the next thing I knew I was in a room with the president of ABC. And I always go to these meetings and always say "Yes," no matter what, so I walked out of there and suddenly I was doing a TV series.

ESQ: When you're writing for television, though, you're not just writing for television, you're creating it, which is a whole other challenge. When you are writing a movie script, are you still able to maintain a large level of that creative control?

AS: I am now, and it's very gratifying. For instance I am working with Danny Boyle right now on Jobs. We start rehearsal for that right after the first of the year and that director-writer relationship feels like the same director-writer relationship that I have when I'm doing a play, and that's how I like it.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

ESQ: As a screenwriter you've had the chance to see some of Hollywood's best directors at work, with Boyle and David Fincher and Mike Nichols. Is directing something that you would be interesting in doing?

AS: When I write something, I want the best director to direct it. And that's not going to be me. So when David Fincher comes along and wants to direct TheSocial Network, when Bennett Miller comes along and wants to direct Moneyball, or when Danny Boyle wants to direct Jobs? Hallelujah. I want them directing it.

ESQ: You write very well and very specifically to your actors. Bradley Whitford is the first person I think of as an example of that. So with Jobs for example, you're writing the script without knowing who will be playing the part. But once you do know the actor, do you tinker more in order to write it for that actor?

AS: That's a really nice compliment. If it's a movie or a play, once you're in rehearsal you kind of start to suss out the actor's or actress's strike zone, and you can see that this two-page speech that you wrote about drinking a glass of water can be cut because the way that the actor is drinking a glass of water is perfect. But by and large it's little touches here and there. With a TV series, as you go further into it and as you get more episodes under your belt, the actor is helping create that character, too. So you know where Jeff Daniels is great or where Emily Mortimer is great and—let's use another sports metaphor—you want to get the ball in an open court. If you cast actors who can all hit an open jump shot, you want to get the ball where they are open.

ESQ: You wrote TheSocial Network and now Jobs. Do you personally have a deep interest in technology?

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

AS: No, I don't have a deep interest in technology. It's kind of a coincidence, TheSocial Network and Jobs. With TheSocial Network, I got into it at first because frankly I thought there was a cool courtroom drama to be had with the intellectual properties. And then what further drew me in was that the most extraordinary social networking device ever created was created by the world's most antisocial person. I liked that story. With Jobs again it's not the technology, it's the relationships he had with various people. Particularly his daughter, but with other people as well... While the technology is a character in all of these things, it's not the reason to do it.

ESQ: Can you talk a little bit about Jobs? You said you were starting shooting early next year. Is the script finished?

"We are in the middle of casting [Jobs] and we begin rehearsal after the first of the year and I am incredibly excited about it."

AS: I say the script is finished, but I'll keep working on it until the night before the cameras roll with a lot of work being done in rehearsal. But the script is finished. We are in the middle of casting and we begin rehearsal after the first of the year and I am incredibly excited about it.

ESQ: There have been some changes to who will play Steve Jobs. Do you have any ideal casting for the role?

AS: Yes, and there will be an announcement very soon.

ESQ: Oh, come on.

AS: I wish I could, but there will be an announcement very soon. I'll tell you what, I'll call you 12 hours before the announcement is made.

ESQ: Well, no. Because then you'll have my phone number and can put me on that hit list and then it's just going to spiral out of control from there. You're trying to set me up!

AS: Damn! [laughs]

ESQ: So are you working on anything else right now or is everything very Jobs-focused?

AS: No, I am about to start writing a new movie. I am really excited about it. And I'll be doing that while we are rehearsing and shooting Jobs.

ESQ: So you aren't leaving yourself open for all sorts of free time I guess?

AS: I don't want to complain about being overemployed. I like it.

ESQ: Do you yourself watch a lot of movies or television?

AS: I am so happy to be taking a break from watching news. While I was doing TheNewsroom, I always had the news on on different networks on different TVs around my house and around my office. And right now, well, I'm aware we just had an election. I am aware there's.. is it a new restaurant, Ebola? Something about Ebola. It's a big deal. So I am aware of these things but I don't have an IV in my arm putting news in there.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Esquire participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.